The company is already selling these products in India for the conveyor and crane industry. Some of our customers have started using decentralized drives, which is Mechatronic equipment, says PL Muthusekkar, Managing Director, Nord Drivesystems Pvt Ltd.

How drive technology is coping with innovations and advancements in Construction Equipments?
From 2010 onwards, there has been a great emphasis on automation and electronics in terms of monitoring and sensing across all products. In the last 10 years, it has been remote monitoring, advanced automation, intelligent product lifecycle management and predictive maintenance kind of innovations leading the way. In the future, digitization will play an integral role in the scheme of things. Nord has been leading the way when it comes to innovations and we have a product called NSD TupH which means Nord Severe Duty and it is scratch-free, corrosion-free and can be used in extreme weather conditions.

How gear boxes can play a critical role in maintaining the lifecycle cost of Construction Equipment? Construction Equipment needs a rugged system because it should have a long lifecycle and product management should be sound. The gear boxes should have Dint class 5 and Dint class 6 technologies so it runs a smooth operation. At the end of the day, the gear boxes used for the construction industry should be silent and smooth in operation and should have precision. We import it from Germany and assemble in India and call them ‘hammerless’ because we don’t use the hammer.

What kind of role technology play in the future and what will be the new normal post-2020?
The future will be geared towards automation. Nord is ready with Industry 4.0 products and we are already selling it in India for the conveyor and crane industry. Some of our customers have started using decentralized drives, which is Mechatronic equipment. We are already doing globalization and close to 25 per cent of our operations are global and we want to take it towards 40 per cent. 

Talking about ‘World Beyond 2020’ theme, every company and individual needs to strategize and focus on fundamentals to cope with this period. Digitalization will be the way forward for the next couple of years until normalcy returns. No business school has taught us about how to recover if the business goes down for six months or how to recover during the lockdown. Going forward, we should anticipate and be ready for such problems and be proactive rather than being reactive to fight challenges.